2018 Ribfest 5-Miler USATF-NE GP#3

Start of Ribfest

Another early morning. This would be only the beginning of my upcoming week of sleep lost. Haha. The drive down wasn't bad, but I would still love a chauffeur sometimes. Holding my foot on the gas pedal the whole time does actually tire my right quad. Next car=Automatic & Cruise Control. John slept the whole way down...and until after the race. I could NOT get him to get up. I was originally going to drag him down to the race area while I raced, but he wouldn't budge. I parked near the front of the lot in a safe place, put the sunshade on, cracked the windows. He was good. It was actually the perfect temperature in the car and stayed that way the whole time he was in it.

I rode the bus down initially just to get my bib number, then I walked back to the car. I did an easy mile run and felt ok. I could feel the slight familiar ache in the tendons, but nothing really bad. I knew this wouldn't be a good time for me today, but I was hoping to feel mostly ok.

I woke John up just enough to let him know I was headed to the race. He acknowledged it and then I ran down to the start. I checked a bag just so I would have my phone and a bag to put snacks in when I finished then meandered to the start. I lined up a little farther back than I should have, but I wanted to line up with my CMS teammates. Two days in a row, I lined up with Barb McManus. Haha. It had gotten pretty warm out so I knew the heat could be a factor, but 2017 was still WAY worse in my opinion. Today was a bit drier. The heat did suck, but it wasn't horrible.

We got started, and I immediately found myself running off to the side to get around all of the people I had started behind. The photographer's photos of me from the start are pretty funny. I initially cropped them to cut the guy out who's in front of me, but those are actually more entertaining to share. Haha. No idea if he ever got thing set since I passed him right after this. Haha.

I was happy when I came around the side and found I was behind Holly Madden and Lindsay Close. Holly beat me here last year. I beat her at Doyle's this year, but I wasn't expecting to run anywhere close to that time today. Lindsay beat me at the first 2 GP races this year, so I decided to keep my pace slow on the hill. As soon as we crested the hill, though, I picked up the pace. Like I've mentioned before, I have to start out fast to make up for the end since the tendons start to ache and slow me down. Today would be no exception. Was it bad? Actually, no, but it was still enough that my last mile was exceptionally slower than it should have been. Fortunately, Lindsay pushed the pace a bit, too, so I had her to follow. I was actually surprised to find us passing people I don't normally pass in the first mile, and then in mile 2, Lindsay dropped back. I felt like I was moving slowly so I hoped it was just them having a bad day and not me being stupid. It turned out they were having a bad day. Haha. I really noticed quickly that my fitness was intact. Cardiovascular-wise, I wasn't going my max. I never did the whole race. But the legs couldn't match up. I don't mean that I was taking it easy, but I just felt like I had a little bit more to give if my body wasn't failing me. Haha. I honestly never looked at my splits during the race. I really just wanted to run on feel and see what became of it so that was interesting since I felt like I had more, but I just couldn't give it. The first two mile splits were 6:23 and 6:30 compared to 6:10 and 6:20 last year. Big time ouch.

Photo by Kim Gordon

Waving at Kim Gordon on the way back. Haha.

 Mile 3 begins on the downhill and has a mix of up and down through the 5k mark. Unfortunately, right at the mile 3 mark, my other issue cropped up. I honestly thought I was going to have to run off into the woods immediately. Like it hit me suddenly. So it became a battle in my head. Could I make it? I honestly didn't know if I could, but I kept going. I hit the 5K in 19:55. Another ouch. I was just happy to still see 19 on that clock. As we climbed the hill I looked from side to side. Where could I step off? I'm not going to make it. But there was nowhere, so I just hoped for the best and kept going. I honestly don't know if that affected the last two miles or not. Mile 4 was only 1 second slower than last year in 6:49. And like I said mile 5 was awful in 6:34 compared to 6:14 last year. It's possible it affected me, but I really don't know. The tendons did for sure, but I'll never know if it was a combo of the two or not. All I remember is just trying to put it out of my mind and to keep running. That's what I did. Mile 4 didn't seem nearly as horrible as last year. On mile 5, I just couldn't drum up any speed on the downhill like I did last year. I mean, I've definitely lost speed for sure. I've hardly run anything fast since April. Zero workouts. Only one 5K. So I'm not surprised, and I wasn't upset with my finish in 32:44. I haven't run a 5 mile race that slow in forever, but it's what I had today. I still managed to finish 2nd in the 40-44 age group for the Grand Prix scoring so I'll take that. Full Results

Headed to the finish

As soon as I finished, I took a water then went right to the porta-John. Let's just say that my body hated me for the next two hours and that this wasn't my only visit to one. Ugh. I hate talking about this stuff, but it's kind of affecting my life so I owe it a mention. Haha.

I got my bag right after and proceeded through the snack line and grabbed a slice of pizza for John. Then I walked back to the car. Funny, I kept running into Arthur Besse in the exact same spot in the parking lot where I ran into him and Heidi last year. It was so weird. Haha. He had a good race. In fact, he's been doing well at every race this year.

John was actually easy to rouse since it was so late, but getting him out of the car was a different story. Haha. Once I stopped sweating, I changed and then waited like 15 minutes for him to change. I realized before the race that John needed someone else's bib to get into Ribfest or else it would cost $10. I wasn't spending $10 for that so I put E-J Hrynowski in charge of finding me one. It only took him 2 minutes before John became Christopher for the day. Haha. I had John put on the race shirt that Dave Dunham gave him and pinned on the bib. Totally looked legit, too. Haha.

I ran into Christin Doneski down near the entrance of Ribfest so I talked with her awhile before we walked through the snack and pizza lines again. Haha. I was bummed she wasn't staying since it meant that I had no one to hang out with AGAIN. I could have found the other Whirlaway people like last year, but I wasn't feeling it. It ended up being so much better hanging out with only John anyway. I bought him cotton candy and got my first beer and we sat in the last bit of shade left available under the tent. It got SO hot there quickly.

When I finished my beer, we went back outside to see if there was any water leftover from the race. We were dying. We snagged two waters and a gatorade just in time and then went back into Ribfest. I needed to charge my phone so we went to the T-Mobile trailer where they had chargers set up. Unfortunately, they set the charger station up right in the sun so that the phones were getting too hot within about 5 minutes and could no longer charge. Duh. Not the brightest move (but I'm not surprised). I kept trying to make shade for it, but it didn't really work well. In the meantime, they had giant Connect 4 there so John and I played it for like 45 minutes while I had my second beer. I was surprised to outsmart John more than usual today. He usually beats me in nearly every game. I think we came out pretty even in wins-losses in the end, though. We were both ready to leave after that, and I had 4 more beer tickets we needed to give away. I told John to look for people who seemed like they would appreciate the free tickets most instead of the rich looking people. Haha. I guess we stereotyped looking for poor people. Haha. But all four tickets were given away to people who seemed to be grateful, so goal was accomplished.

John wanted to take the shuttle back, but said that it was either walk back to the car or take the dogs on a walk when we got home. He chose the walk back to the car. On the way back, I did what I always do and forced a selfie on him. Hahaha. Moms are SO annoying! :D

We drove straight home from there and were back pretty early. I dropped John off at the house then took the dogs on a walk in the Albany Town Forest. It was bug hell so I made it as quick as possible for the 1.8 mile loop.

And of course, the rest of my night after making dinner was spent on the couch with Phoenix. Haha.

So overall a really good week. Back to running... a little bit. I got to be a part of racing again. I hung out with a lot of friends on Friday and Saturday. Definitely left me upbeat and optimistic about my injury. It improved immensely from Tuesday to Sunday. It's still there. It's still holding me back. But it's not as bad as it was. I'm going to start putting some running back into my routine and keep spinning until my membership is up on July 1st. I'll probably go back to Olympia gym a few Tuesday spin classes to use up the rest of my punch card there. I'm definitely going to miss spinning at Integrity. It's been so good for me the last 3 weeks and I'd like to continue it, but I don't know if it's worth the cost. I might change my mind, though.

Next up on my list.... Barrel House Z 5K, part of the New England Runner Pub Series. A trip to see family in Texas. And then the Loon Mountain Race for my 8th year in a row!